Psychosocial factors of divorced parents that influence payment of food pension to their sons (daughters)

A significant and sustained rise in the divorce rate and cases concerning payment of compulsory child support that are filed in Costa Rica's courts has provoke a series of concerns and questions regarding the causes of the lack of compliance of the male parent economic obligations and the effectiveness of the law to enforce such payment. Considering the little knowledge on this subject, this paper proposes a theoretical integrative model regarding how psychosocial factors of divorced and separated male parents whose children are not in their custody, could determine the compliance of the payment of compulsory child support. In order to establish the conceptual and operative dimensions that conform this model, a state-of-the-art was elaborated, process that included a categorization of the results and findings available on the investigations that have been carried out in Costa Rica and the United States relative to the problem at issue, an interpretation by thematic nucleus and finally, a multidimensional theoretical construction from these valid sources of hypothesis.